Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) and Latino Outdoors are proud to bring you this free screening to highlight landscape-level wildlife connectivity issues and intersections between our ecosystems and communities who are charged with stewarding them.
Registrants will receive an emailed access link to view the film from Oct 23-25.
FILM DESCRIPTION
(Ben Crosbie & Tessa Moran/2018/70 min)
A visually dazzling meditation on the delicate balance between human and nature, The Guardians elegantly interweaves the lives of the iconic monarch butterfly with an indigenous community in Mexico. Both depend on the same ancient forest for their survival and now face an uncertain future. Migrating 3,000 miles to hibernate in the towering Oyamels, the monarch population faces collapse, hitting a record low of 33 million, down from 1 billion just twenty years ago. In the valley below, the people of Donaciano Ojeda must carve out a sustainable future in their ancestral lands now part of the protected Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Once loggers of this forest, they’ve made a radical decision to stop and to regrow it instead. Santos, a charismatic avocado farmer and Aristeo, a philosophical tree caretaker are the storytellers of the community as they face new threats of illegal logging, internal divisions, and their own mortality. Shot over three years, this intimate documentary takes viewers on a cinematic journey through the butterfly dense mountaintops of Michoacan as the community works to build a sustainable path forward. Rarely has the communion of human and nature been told in such an evocative and surprising way, leaving viewers with a new perspective on the ecological challenges facing us all.
Feature photo and other images provided by Eidolon Films
MONARCH BLOGS & RESOURCES
The migration of monarchs across North and Central America is an excellent example of how our local lands are connected to broader landscapes, and how the actions we take at the local level impact the health of our broader ecosystems. Below we’ve included several blogs and other resources that provide more context about the ecology and cultural importance of the Monarch Butterfly, and how you can help support this important species.
- Mary Ellen Hannibal, author of Citizen Scientist: Searching for Heroes and Hope in an Age of Extinction writes about what we’ve learned about the decline in the monarch population from citizen science projects. Read here.
- How You Can Save the Monarch Butterfly from POST Director of Conservation Science Peter Cowen
- Landscaping that will help native Californian species flourish from POST’s former Director of Conservation Science Nicole Heller
- Where to Find Monarch Butterfly Roosts in the Bay Area from POST’s Matt Dolkas
- Monarchs & Día de los Muertos
- Center for Biological Diversity campaign to save the monarch butterfly.
- Monarch Conservation Fund
- About the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve a UNESCO Heritage Site, and where this film takes place.
- Forest Management History of Mexico
- International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs
This event is part of POST’s community event series. These events are open to the general public as well as POST donors alike, and we hope you will join us! We also curate a separate series of private events for our donor community as well. Find out more about how you can support POST here: https://openspacetrust.org/support-post/
About the Organizers
Latino Outdoors’ mission is to inspire, connect, and engage Latino communities in the outdoors and embrace cultura y familia as part of the outdoor narrative, ensuring their history, heritage, and leadership are valued and represented.
Peninsula Open Space Trust protects and cares for open space, farms and parkland in and around Silicon Valley. Since 1977, POST has protected over 79,000 acres in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties.
